When the system prevents coherence, the work expands

Early in my career I noticed something that has remained consistent ever since: when the system prevents coherence, the work expands until coherence is possible.

At the time, websites were treated as technical infrastructure, not design. They were built externally, delivered in rigid table-based layouts, handed over as finished artefacts. Designers could influence a banner or a layout comp, but not the behaviour of the thing itself.

I could see the problem immediately. If design is responsible for what people experience, then design cannot stop at the point where the experience becomes real.

So I taught myself to code—not to become a developer, but to remove the hand-off that was breaking the work. I wanted the ability to carry intent through: from visual decisions to interaction, structure, and the moments where people actually feel whether something is coherent or not.

That instinct has stayed with me.

I don't expand my scope to collect skills. I expand it when the integrity of the experience depends on it.